OH my goodness.................

Ready for a report on more bad luck????................  The week has progressed relatively well- trained twice and took the generator back to the store we bought it from on Monday – Friday we were all set to go to Quebec City (about 2 hours drive) for me to get permanent eyeliner applied by Valerie Fuchs – she is a 6 dog driver that we help all the time and that is her profession – I had tried to make the appointment myself but every time I call the salon they didn’t speak English and they hung up on me!!!!  So Valerie ended up having to call and make it- Randy even delayed training dogs for me to have the appointment!  So we got on the road and about an hour into the trip Randy noticed the same symptoms appearing on the truck that we had when the serpentine belt went out in the UP by Newberry!!!  No power steering, no lights, no battery charging!!!!  So he had me find the nearest Chevy/GMC dealership and it was 22 miles once we got off the expressway – and it was all curvy roads through little towns with lots and lots of left and right turns!!!!!!!!!!  Can you imagine trying to turn that truck without power steering?????!!!!!    So after much frustration and short temper we get to the dealership- and thankfully the guy at the service desk spoke English!  2 hours and $176 later we had a new idler pulley and serpentine belt-  if Randy had not purposefully bought an extra serpentine belt before we left Michigan the guy told us it would have been until Monday that it would have been fixed!!!!!  So it was the other idler pulley that is on this truck that broke this time (if the idler pulley breaks then the serpentine belt goes………..)– there are only 2 so maybe we won’t have this problem again – just in case Randy had the mechanic at Bellerive’s business order another one to have with us.  Also I had been trying to call Valerie and the salon to tell them I wouldn’t make my appointment and again, every time I called she hung up on me!!!  So, very nicely, the guy at the dealership called the number for me and told them in French that I had truck problems and wouldn’t make the appointment.  The enjoyable outing I thought I was going to have treating myself to a perk and seeing some of the City of Quebec turned out to be 7 hours of driving and sitting and for naught……….  The only fun thing we did see was driving by a farmhouse….there were about 6 chickens on their front porch!!!!!  I don’t know as I would like to have all of the extra “presents” they would leave on the porch!!!

Today we trained in 37 degree weather – only went about 3 miles – just to take the edge off the energy of the dogs and have a fun run - they pretty much need to run every other day at least!

Randy has decided to buy an sled from Claude – it is a Danler which is the sled that 99% of sprint racers are using – he has been holding out not wanting to spend the money not knowing how much longer he will be racing but since Claude is selling off Melanie’s it’s a good time to try it and see if it corners better than his Gatt sled that he’s had for 18 years – actually he’s had 2 of them and when I was racing I used the older one – They were good for their time but there must be something about the Danler sleds that work better or so many people wouldn’t be using them – I guess if he doesn’t like it he can always sell it…………..

Tomorrow Claude is training his teams (one for him and his back-up team run by Hermel)  Oh I don’t think I mentioned it before but if you want to see race results or pictures of Randy from the races you can go to the sled dog club of Quebec’s website - http://www.cacqsecretaire.com/classement-du-cacq-2016.php